


Violet Bloom

by KingKarate, StrikeLikeACobraKai



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Broken Hearts, Exes, F/M, Friendship, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Snark King and Queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:47:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28167246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingKarate/pseuds/KingKarate, https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikeLikeACobraKai/pseuds/StrikeLikeACobraKai
Summary: Winter, 1986.Susan and Tommy broke up two years ago. They tried to make it work for a while after that, but it came to the bitterest of ends. Thrown back together at Jimmy’s parties all winter, they've had to see each other regularly for the first time since high school.(a Malibu companion-fic and includes work and scenes from Rising Tide)
Relationships: Susan/Tommy (Karate Kid)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 8
Collections: Malibu-niverse





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InvisibleObserver13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvisibleObserver13/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Malibu](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27590390) by [StrikeLikeACobraKai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrikeLikeACobraKai/pseuds/StrikeLikeACobraKai). 
  * Inspired by [Rising Tide](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27775645) by [KingKarate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingKarate/pseuds/KingKarate). 



> [SPOILS MALIBU UP UNTIL EPILOGUE] If you are reading, or think you will ever read Malibu, I highly suggest that you do yourself a favour and catch up there first. It will make this story SO much better for you :) This is a little special reward that arises from some plots there, and makes little sense without the scene-setting of locations, characters and narratives from there.
> 
>  **Note from StrikeLike:** There’s been a lot of conjecture about how Susan is behaving, and why, in Malibu :)
> 
> I have deliberately avoided fully answering those questions, and sometimes outright lying in my answers, knowing that I always intended to give you this story here, and I wanted it to come as a wonderful surprise.
> 
> In a chat with KingKarate, they let me know they were also intending much the same thing, which made me so excited, because I was able to say, IT’S ALL GOOD, I GOTCHU FAM.
> 
> The various reader reaction meant I had laid exactly the groundwork in Malibu that I meant to – this is what the readers wanted, but they did NOT think they were going to be getting it. Perfect.
> 
> So KingKarate and I started to plan and write the story together, and here it is :) There will hopefully be more added to this as time goes on, but for now, this is basically what I had in mind right from when I started posting Malibu :’)
> 
>  **Note from KingKarate:** As we've seen Johnny doing the work to be worthy of Ali in Malibu, everyone else has been doing their own growth offscreen, having their own thoughts and stories and motivations.
> 
> I've been asked about Susan in particular a few times, and it's been hard not answering because I am so enthusiastic about her character and her friendships with the girls. She's got a lot of pain, but they all do in this world, and part of the joy is seeing it bloom into something beautiful.
> 
> Anyway, here's the story:

__


	2. Chapter 2

_(Matches with Malibu: Saturday 4)_

I think, have thought for ages, that Tina might actually be certifiable.

She’s crazy about Dutch, but the reason that is unfathomable is because she _knows_ him and she still likes him. And the more she gets to know him, the more she seems into that asshole.

It's all going to end in tears, and I hate it, apart from that small shitty part of me that thinks misery loves company. But I can find it in even my bitterness to hope that somehow, by a once in a lifetime miracle, I’m wrong about him, for her sake. 

We’re sitting down here on the beach. I’ve been finding it liveable to be around Tommy as Jimmy’s parties have gone on, like we’ve called a truce that involves total lack of acknowledgement.

To the outside, we’re really good at ignoring each other, even if _I_ know that that particular situation is hurting one of us, only one.

But compared to an option where I look like a harpy and let out what I actually feel, it’s got to be better, right?

Tonight, things have been going moderately well until the latest topic, about how we used to all go over the hill in groups of this or that. Or at least, I got to go there, until I didn’t, when Tommy and I had broken up.

But Greg. Fucking _Greg_ has to go and ruin it, because I guess guys just don’t have a clue sometimes.

“Hey, you remember that time -” he says to Tommy, who’s sitting there next to Erin, and then he breaks off so abruptly that heads turn to him like a reflex.

He looks at me guiltily and I think to myself, yeah, now you’ve gotten there, have you? Realised I’m not loving this conversation? Little late, friend.

I try to pay attention to anything else.

Greg tries to deflect. “Wait, shit, never mind.”

“Remember what?” Tommy asks. “Spill, Greg.”

And I’m pulled right back in despite myself. I’ve _got_ to try to listen to someone else’s conversation, but there’s none: everyone has gone quiet, and there’s nowhere else to turn. Tina and Dutch are watching with the same look on their faces; it’s completely fucked up how similar they are. _Fuckers._

If Ali hadn’t already gone away with Barbara and the guys, I know she’d be trying to give me some comfort, might even try to take the attention off of where it is, because she would know exactly how deep the mental hole I am digging through the ground under me is. I’ll be finding fresh water soon, and after that coal. Maybe extinct creatures.

But Tommy’s still waiting, and so is everyone else, so Greg screws his face up. “Shit, okay. I was gonna say remember that time that cop showed up -” 

_Oh no,_ no no no. Not that. I had to spend weeks listening to our school spread that ‘hilarious’ rumor, and every time, it hurt more to think about, since it was like people shouting at me, _see, Tommy’s moved on from you, Susan._

Greg’s cut himself off again, and I don’t know if maybe I’m looking worse for wear than I think I am, which is possible since I think I can feel that prick behind my eyes that I am determined to triumph over, or if it’s because of Tina, sitting across from me, who is looking like she will actually kill him if he keeps talking.

I’m grateful for it, for her. She might have really terrible taste in men, but that’s not unusual among my friends, and aside from that, I love her.

I have no choice but to leave now, planning to run away like the impaired life form I am, because I can’t let anyone see.

But my heart catches: Tommy’s looking at Greg, and there’s sharp, silent anger on his face.

I can’t help but wonder what _that_ means, and there’s no answer, only holy shit, it hurts to remember everything. _Why does it still hurt?_

“I'm going to get a drink.”

I’m up on my feet, and sure it’s obvious, but if I’m lucky I look angry rather than what’s really happening.

I keep my face tight as I walk away.

*

_(Matches Malibu: Wednesday 5: NYE)_

There they all go, now, filing out the back door.

I knew they were going for a big ride tonight; it’s been in the air for weeks, and they went last Monday, too. It’s more people this time, though, and mostly couples. Because it seems like that’s all that happens at Jimmy’s parties, like it was the whole goddamn intention for it or something: happy people finding each other, falling for each other.

Well, _lucky_ them.

I know it’s not quite like that with Tommy and Erin, not a romance, of course.

I watch them walking side by side through the living room, past where I’m sitting with Nicole, and they’re not far behind Johnny and Ali. I saw Erin come in with him after the other ride, the night that Tommy’s group did karate, walking in next to him, in what used to be my place after he took me out. And tonight she’s there again.

Tommy’s got his helmet and gloves cradled in his hands, and I haven’t forgotten when I used to carry those for him when he got off the bike. Maybe it’s a small consolation that Erin’s not holding his stuff, nor he for her. It seems they both know what this is: company for now, some fun maybe, until it isn’t fun, and that will be that. Tommy's a lot of things, but as far as I can tell, he isn’t intentionally misleading anyone.

By the next time I see him, there’ll be someone else. It’s not like this is the first time we’ve run into each other, which is why I know: those of us who still live in the Valley full time cross paths occasionally even if we don’t want to. We know too many of the same people, end up at the same things sometimes.

I can’t bring myself to resent any of the girls I hear about or see Tommy with when we do, since I can hardly blame them, but also this shameful over-sympathetic part of me feels sorry for them, because from what I can tell, he’s finished with relationships altogether, now. So none of them, Erin included, are even going to get the full Tommy experience. Not like I did.

Erin seems okay with it: she’s not even bothered by his ex, which is as strong a message as any. But then again, she doesn’t know what she’s missing, which for her sake is a good thing, I guess. _That_ Tommy isn’t available anymore.

I mean, on a good day, I could take that as a compliment, that maybe I ruined him for anyone else. But he doesn’t want me back, and sometimes it’s hard for a girl to not take that to me I really did actually ruin him somehow.

He seems fine, though; more than fine.

Which is probably why the words bubble up out of me even before I realise.

“Better make sure you’ve got your helmets on tight. Wouldn't want any more of you to end up brain-damaged.”

Even with who it’s about, which is obvious, I say it to my friends, but Ali is so preoccupied with whatever bad decisions she’s on the verge of making about Johnny, that she doesn’t even respond, other than her slight, pained frown. Maybe she doesn’t want to draw more attention to me, because she knows better than anyone how I’ve been feeling.

Then, since, now.

It’s Ali, more often than not, who saw me crying, and she knows to take that secret to her grave, since I have a reputation to uphold. Barbara’s there for me too, but Barbara doesn’t know how this feels the way we do, even though Ali’s case is different to mine. Barbara only gives me an awkward smile.

But Tommy stops walking before he gets to the hallway, and he looks across at me.

Why did I have to say that?

He’s frowning, and I can see he’s perplexed at me suddenly lashing out after our peace of weeks, and in public.

It’s clear he has no idea how to take what I just said, and I wonder if maybe he noticed more than I wanted him to, on the beach on Saturday. That’s a thought to make me go into witness protection if ever there was one.

The rest of them are moving on, out the door, and even Erin is walking ahead, maybe hoping Tommy might start up again.

“What?” I ask.

His brows furrow. He opens his mouth, then closes it again and just stares at me.

But he’s bunching up the line of riders now, and Steve and Meredith are ducking around him to get past, and Tommy comes back to himself.

With one last inscrutable look at me, he’s gone.

“Hey,” Nicole says gently to me, and she takes my hand with hers. “You okay?”

“Not really,” I admit, before I can think better of it.

*

Connie and I have been dancing for ages. It’s a nice way to spend the night, and I don’t need the help of alcohol to feel some joy as I let my hair down and just let the music into me. I’m relaxed enough that I don’t even mind so much when they change the music to something harder.

There’s a mess in here, but nothing permanent I hope, and when Jimmy leads everyone back inside, he seems pretty light-hearted about it.

We get all of our friends together for a while, only Tina missing, and then we break apart again, and I’m with Nicole, and we’re going kind of crazy, which is fun.

When I hear Tommy calling out the song, I can’t help but turn to look for him, but I’m too short to see where he is, other than over by the bar, somewhere.

I find myself rolling my eyes enough that they hurt when I watch Dutch and Tina, leaving me hardly anything in reserve when I notice that Ali has her arms up around Johnny now.

Well, I knew _that_ was going to happen. Looks like I’ve missed the moment, which is good, but she’s so happy that I can’t ruin it by letting her see me right now, so I turn away.

It’s her life. I get that Johnny’s not like he was; we’ve been talking enough for me to know that. But unless there’s been a lot more going on than Ali has told me, he hasn’t earned her back, and I can’t see how he ever will. He’s got no idea how much she deserves.

I’ll be here for her if she ends up needing me, just like she has been for me.

When it’s a little closer to midnight, the music gets turned down, and I can tell the room is getting ready for a countdown.

I turn around right into Tommy, who’s standing there with a beer in hand, and he’s already looking at me.

The fact that he was behind me makes me unsettled, because I don’t know how long for, or whether he was watching me, what he was thinking, or anything at all, and that seems very unfair.

“Happy New Year,” he says, and his voice is friendly enough that I probably wouldn’t have to get very close to him to get a blood alcohol reading from his breath. “I mean, it’s early. But I hope yours is good.”

I’m pretty much lip-locked, which is rare for me.

He shrugs awkwardly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

I clear my throat, getting rid of the fuzziness there. “Thanks,” I say. “You too.”

Before anything else can be said, someone shouts out ‘ten,’ and then everyone joins in on ‘nine’, and then my friends are grabbing me to bring me into their circle with some of their guys, although Ali is missing.

*

We were already sitting there on the empty patio, Connie and I, when Tommy came out with those guys and sat down nearby to wait for the dawn.

Everything has been pretty chilled out for the last half an hour or so, and the party will die with the sun, I think, or not long after.

When Ali and Johnny come out together to go down to the beach, I notice Tommy watching them closely. They wave at us, both groups, but only really have eyes for each other.

I spent some with her before, and she told me a little more of what happened than she previously had. We left it okay. I wish I could give her the enthusiasm she wants from me, but she seems to understand that I can’t, and why I can’t, and I think we’ll be alright.

She hasn’t convinced me, and I get the strangest feeling that Tommy might be thinking a fairly similar thing to me about them being back together, and how bad of an idea it is.

I wait until he looks at me, because I have to confirm it, and he does that for me when he gives a meaningful nod.

Once they are far enough away to be out of earshot, I say, “And there goes the last domino.”

“I guess it was inevitable.”

It kind of stuns me that we are so in tune about this: he gets it. This is them not being very smart.

We talk on for some time, and it seems so natural, just like the basic functions in my brain that I have no control over, for us to start to argue about it, about which of our friends is the one who will ruin it this time.

It’s a good argument. It’s our kind of argument, and I’m getting into it before I can stop myself.

When Tommy starts to smirk at me, disagreeing with me, I put a little more into it.

*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three chapters (well, two with writing in) put up at once, so make sure you started at the start :)

_(Matches Malibu: Saturday 5)_

It’s near the end now. The last party’s nearly finished.

Ali and Johnny left hours ago, but not me, since I figured I may as well wait until the bitter end. I’m still worried about them, and I might always be, but he is surprising me, I admit. Although on the other hand, it’s completely sickening, because they are obviously made for each other, and it’s hard to get into happy endings for someone, even someone I love as much as Ali, when I don’t get one myself.

I’m trying to get over it. It’s been hard to watch Tommy be so okay, when I’m still not.

I am a glutton for punishment and self-hatred, because I talked to him the other night, more than once. At dawn, we talked for ages. I don’t know why I did it. I can’t blame alcohol, since I didn’t drink much. Maybe I can blame idiotically hopeful New Year spirit. Maybe I can blame myself.

It’s the kindest he’s been to me, and me to him, even though it came in the form of us bickering, about something we care about. For maybe five, maybe ten minutes, it even _almost_ felt like… us.

It was stupid of me to do it, because I’ve given myself a fresh reminder of what I no longer have.

Tonight I watched his break-up, if you can call it that, since whatever they had wasn’t exactly a long term relationship. But I saw them, near the start of the party. Talking by themselves, standing on the beach, and I saw them when they walked away from each other, and I knew that’s what it was, Erin not really looking much more bothered about it than Tommy was.

I wondered if Tommy and I might talk to each other again tonight, but no luck, and maybe he had enough on his mind.

The embers of this party have burned pretty low by now; I think there might be dozen people floating about, mostly down on the beach. It’s all going to be over soon: winter, being at Jimmy’s, the parties. Seeing Tommy twice a week, predictably, for hours.

I’m not happy with the way that I feel about losing that last one, which includes the word disappointed but other words too, because I should know much better than that.

I’m helping Jen with tidying up, since she’s started. As usual, there are glasses, and tumblers, and empty bottles on surfaces in the living room, abandoned and forgotten, and I guess I did that too, at some of the parties.

Funny how when you’re growing up you don’t really notice that someone has to actually do those jobs. I do not get what Jen could possibly find to enjoy about doing all this work – she’s not only tidying it up, and Jimmy is circling around to help too, but many nights she made the food in the first place, set everything out, kept it running.

Is that fun?

Could it _possibly_ be?

Doesn’t seem to make sense to me, but the least I can do is help her out, and I can use the activity to distract myself from my envy, the envy I wish I could get rid of, because I really don’t want to embrace it. I’d rather be kind, think kind things for my friends.

When they’re both in the kitchen, Jimmy and Jen, I don’t miss the way they smile at each other when I come back in with some stray plates.

“Hey,” Jenny says, “thank you, but you can leave that, now.”

“It’s fine,” I sigh, while I’m filling the dishwasher. “You guys have done more than enough for us.”

I throw them a smile. “Why don’t you head down to the beach? Everyone will go soon. You should have the time with them, last chance.”

“You sure?” Jimmy asks, and Jen looks like she might overrule me.

“Yes,” I say firmly. “This work will still be here in an hour, but let me do some. I’d like to.”

Jen gives my shoulder a squeeze.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now get out of here.”

I make a lot of headway, and do another sweep of the living room, and head back into the kitchen to take care of what I rounded up.

At least Jimmy and Jen won’t have so much to do when we’re gone, now, which it occurs to me they must have been doing this whole time. But the happy couple will be able to head off to bed, in their happy couple bliss, and good for them.

I’m all about the happy couples.

A few minutes later I hear a voice from outside the kitchen.

“Yeah right!” _His_ voice, the sound making its way into me.

Tommy.

“That’s not how I remember it, man!”

It’s getting louder, closer, and sure enough, he comes into the kitchen, and stops in his tracks when he sees I’m in here, and alone.

“Oh, uh… hey,” he says hesitantly.

“Hey.”

“We, uh. Someone’s broken some glass out there.”

He holds up a beer bottle in his hand, the top sheared jaggedly off, and some shards, which must have been picked up, inside.

“Trash is over there.” I nod to the corner. “You need a dustpan?”

Tommy looks a little taken aback by the suggestion of thorough tidying, I think. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“In the pantry. Behind the door.”

“Thanks.” He watches me, or glances at me again on his way over there, ducks inside, and I see the door swing toward me as he goes in behind.

Once he’s got what he needs, I’m alone again, and there are some glasses I can put away.

I know they keep some of them at that bar out there, but the everyday ones in here, so I start with those, searching the cupboards around the room until I find something that matches what I’m holding in a door over the bench where the microwave is.

Tommy comes back in, walking past behind me, to scrape into the trash, and once he’s all done with that, he’s over there where I was, and washing his hands.

“Learned to clean up after yourself, have you?” I say, and then close my eyes, because actually I didn’t mean that anything like it sounded.

He doesn’t reply, and why would he, so I offer:

“Sorry, you said it was someone else. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It’s okay,” Tommy says after a pause. “We both know I’ve made enough mess… it was a fair comment.”

When I turn to look, he’s watching me, guardedly.

I remember I’m still holding a glass, and when I move it in my hand, it breaks the spell, and he’s drying off.

He has to walk past me again to leave the kitchen, and I hope for a pause in his steps, which of course doesn’t come.

I let out a tight little breath and close the cupboard door above my head.

When I turn around, Tommy’s standing in the doorway, one fist rubbing a nervous, slow motion against his leg, a tic he doesn’t know he does.

I’m backing away a few steps, and I find the refrigerator to lean against, because I need it behind me.

“You’re not the only one who did,” I tell him, because I never got to, before. I never had the guts to acknowledge that, and that isn’t right.

Tommy nods slightly. “Mine was worse.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

He smiles, and just like that, days and weeks of work I have been putting in to try to make this better for me become useless. How long has it been since he gave me a smile, that didn’t mean anything bad?

He takes a deep breath, thoughtful. “Do you think, in general, that you’re more or less forgiving than, say… Ali, for instance?”

It can’t be.

It cannot be: things like this do not happen to me, even if that stupid spinning feeling in my stomach is whirring like a washing machine.

I put my hands up behind my back, my elbows out to the side as I look at Tommy. He takes one step toward me, then another one, when he sees I’m not moving away from him.

It’s in his eyes: he wants my answer.

So. This is what it’s like, is it? To know a broken heart doesn’t have to stay broken? I see why people like it.

I won’t show Tommy how much I feel like I could just about throw up from things not being awful, from it stopping so suddenly I’ve been nearly knocked off of my course.

“As a rule, less. But given that Ali has been _very_ forgiving, I’d say there’s a lot of room to play with, there.”

This stupid, wonderful winter of parties must actually be the place where everyone’s dreams come true, because Tommy has come right over to me, and he puts both arms up on the refrigerator above me, our eyes locked together.

“I could apologise,” he says.

“You could. It’d be more complex than that, but we could start there.”

“I could kiss you.”

“Maybe we should start there instead.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KingKarate: So this is it, the final chapter. Obviously their story has only just begun, but you'll get to see it continue through their friends, in **A Match Made In Heaven** (Jimmy/Jennifer), **Malibu in Miniature** (Johnny/Ali), and **Rising Sun** (Dutch/Tina). It's been beautiful sharing this with you, and with Kai. I really hope you all enjoyed seeing them heal some of the hurt they've been experiencing, and get the happily-ever-after they were destined for. Thanks for reading.
> 
> StrikeLikeACobraKai: Hi everyone. It's been lovely to have you read this story. I'll never forget how happy I was when posting Malibu to find out how many people were interested and invested in Tommy and Susan's story. Here we've given them their happy ending, too. Or their happy beginning. Thanks, KingKarate, for teaming up with me to tell the story. It's been so much fun working with you ♥

I wake up at the time my alarm would usually go, thankful I remembered to turn it off before I fell asleep.

Tommy’s next to me, for the first time in forever. His sandy blond hair is ruffled, and I can’t seem to stop myself reaching up to smooth it out. It feels the same: soft and light, falling through my fingers how it used to.

He makes that same sleepy groan he always did. I’ve woken him; he turns to me, his face moving into the ray of sunlight that’s falling across my bed. His hand, always so careful with me, slow and deliberate, comes to find my bare hip, rubbing slowly across my side.

“Morning,” he murmurs.

He stretches out, and the blanket shifts down his body, exposing his chest. He looks into my eyes, searching my face for something. We gave each other some answers already, last night, but not many with words.

We’re going to have to. We can’t avoid it.

But I’ve got this embarrassingly optimistic feeling in me, that since we both _want_ to, maybe things are going to be really different this time.

I rest my other hand over his heart, since I suppose I can do that, and there’s this flicker of a smile.

“You sleep okay?” Tommy asks.

“Yeah, I did. You?” I could admit this is the best I’ve slept in a long, long time, but I’m not sure if that’s too much. 

He hums in reply, a contented sound I can’t really believe I get to hear again.

“Better than I have in ages.”

There we are, that whirring, washing-machine feeling in my stomach. Stupid, foolish, dizzy hope. It’s breathtaking. It better not be a mistake. If I follow that feeling, I’m opening myself up to all kinds of potential hurt again, and I’m pretty sure it would be worse than before, as difficult to conceive as that is, because if it screws up, I will despise myself for being stupid enough to believe.

Tommy’s hand moves away, and its absence is something I immediately dislike. He sits up in bed, pushes himself back so he’s sitting against the headboard, and then he puts his hand back in almost the same place on me. I’m on a rollercoaster, with all the highs and lows and slightly sick feelings of being shot up in the air, dropped from a great height, and coming away unscathed.

“You remember our first date?” he asks, as though he’s reading my mind.

“We went to Knott’s, Halloween 1983. And _you_ couldn’t keep your eyes off Elvira during her show.” 

“It was a _good_ show,” he says defensively. I roll my eyes, and he laughs and raises his hands in surrender. “You have to admit the flashdance number was fun.”

“It was, I admit that much.” Those fingers come back down onto me again.

We went as a group with everyone: his friends and mine. After the eight-thirty show we split off into couples and clusters and roamed the park, feeling like we were living dangerously.

I mean, we _were_ in a sense, as we found out later.

“And you liked Terror Mountain, didn’t you?” he asks, smirking.

I narrow my eyes. He knows full well that the spooky log flume creeped me out, but he seems to have forgotten that I _also_ know things.

“Not as much as you,” I say deprecatingly. “You shrieked like a little girl when that wolf howled.”

He laughs, mischief, playfulness, in his eyes. We’re bickering, which is part of us, and always will be, sometimes light like this, sometimes with a harder edge. I couldn’t imagine a world where Tommy was with me but didn’t want to disagree with me about things, or tease me, or try to put me on the back foot. All while waiting for me, expecting me to give as good as I get.

Well, we have time for that. I’ll have to work my way back into it, because I’m out of practice.

I decide to kiss him instead. He meets me halfway, tangles his fingers in my hair, kisses me how my boyfriend Tommy always kissed me. It really is unbelievable how little it feels like anything has changed.

His fiendish chuckle, when he lets me go, vibrates through me.

“Remember when the train got stuck in the haunted mine?” 

“You think that’s _funny?”_ I say warningly, but I’m smiling tightly.

I couldn't forget if you'd paid me. It was _terrifying._ The ride stopped suddenly, in the darkest portion of the track, so pitch black I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Tommy must’ve felt me tense up next to him, because the next thing I knew he was pulling me close. I wasn’t alone. He was there.

With his arm around me, we'd shared our first kiss right there in the dark.

Another thing I’ll never forget. I was so certain we'd last forever. 

We didn’t; we let it go. Both of us in our different ways, we ruined what we had until it was such a mess we had to walk away. Tommy destroyed all of the remnants right at the end, but I know I played my shameful part in getting us to that point in the first place.

Now that I’ve got him back, after having a long enough time with my broken heart, I can’t believe we ever let this go.

I know why Ali wanted so bad to let Johnny in, despite her better judgement, despite my protests. I guess I can admit it must be something like this for her, too.

I’m at a crossroad. If I let Tommy know how much this means to me, and how scared I am about how we’re going to be able to get it right, he’ll know everything.

If I keep it from him, I think I’m sabotaging us from the start.

Maybe he sees that in my eyes, since his expression has changed slightly. He strokes the back of my neck, fingers playing at my hairline.

“I’ve missed this. Missed _you,”_ he says. “Like, the last few years have been fine.” I can feel his heart beating, hard, _strong,_ under my hand. His fingers move on my side, the way they do when he does his fidgeting on his leg, when he’s unsure about something.

“Things have been… okay, I guess,” he goes on. “But, since we finished, I've been just moving forward because I had to.”

It’s everything I wanted to hear, too good to be true, and my lips are glued together. I brush away the urge to pinch myself just to check it’s not a messed-up dream. _But that’s the same for me,_ I think, and I know I need to try to find a way to say that out aloud.

It’s hard for me. I stroke over his chest.

Tommy takes a breath, seems to turn some words over in his head before he says them. “It hasn't really felt like there was... I don't know... much spark, I guess.”

“Seems to me you looked for one in a lot of places.” I say it gently, without any of the bitterness I used to feel. That’s melted away, now that I have him.

“I did. And I didn't find it.”

“And now?” I ask, because I want to hear him say it.

His smile, soft, tender and loving, tells me everything I need to know, but the words don’t hurt either. “It’s here.”

My turn. Come on, don’t chicken out. I can’t let Tommy have this one over on me.

“You’re not the only one, you know? I tried to move on. It just…” I sigh, with a smile of my own. “It never seemed to work.”

His eyes are watching me carefully. “You fooled me.”

“I had to,” I say evenly. “I couldn't bear the idea of you knowing how I was still feeling when you seemed to be so fine.”

A small crease appears between his eyebrows, and it paints regret across his face, clear as day. It’s the same as I'm feeling.

“Susan, I’m sorry. If I'd known…” 

But he couldn't have. Neither of us gave a hint, and the hurt was just too raw and ugly to put on display, for both of us by the sounds. Could we have been any more stupid?

But maybe we needed this time to pass. Maybe we needed to be older. It can’t hurt; I’m a more determined person now even than I used to be, so if Tommy’s back with me, he’s going to find out that he’s going to be getting a different relationship this time. We won’t be making our old mistakes again.

“I'm sorry, too.”

He pulls me back to him for another kiss, sealing our apologies. It's brief; he lets me go after, reluctantly. But I know him well enough to understand that he was trying to reassure himself, as much as me, that the not-knowing part is dealt with. We made it past that.

I smile and say drily, “Did we thank Jimmy, for getting everyone back together? Putting you and I in the same place for long enough that we came to our senses?”

“Yeah, a few times I think.”

“I might do it again, just to make sure.”

Tommy gives me what I’m sure he thinks is a guilty look, but it’s not quite as convincing as it would be on most people.

“You know, when I saw Ali getting ready to take Johnny back, I pretty much almost stopped coming to those parties.”

“You did?” I ask, with a flicker of fear, the thought of how close we might have been to never getting here.

He takes a deep breath, lets it out in a heavy sigh. “I know this is shitty, and I'm not proud of it. I mean I did want it for him, real bad, even though I was worried it was a huge mistake. But I was so jealous I couldn't see straight. Him, getting to fix the past, get everything back he lost, and meanwhile me seeing you... and not having any chance of that.”

“So you thought,” I remind him, and his arm tightens on me.

“So I thought,” he agrees softly.

“I may have had a similar moment,” I admit with a wry smile. “Especially watching you with Erin. I was so sure I'd never get this again; it was hard to see somebody else.”

Tommy swallows, and now he does look almost sheepish. “You know that wasn’t…?”

“Yeah, I know.”

I remember thinking at the time she didn’t know what she was missing, and I’m really glad for her that she didn’t.

For some reason, some wonderful, too good to be true reason, it’s _me_ that gets the Tommy experience, the real thing.

I trace my fingers down the valley of his chest, feeling the fine dusting of hair, and I steel myself to ask the one thing I need, even though the answer could break me.

All my longing comes through in my voice. “So are we really doing this again?”

“I have to try, if you'll let me.”

“I’m letting you.”

His hand cups the back of my arm, pulling me closer. The movement brings my hand to the back of his neck, his other hand guiding me over him, until I’m straddling his lap. We’re face to face, our bodies pressed together, chest to chest. It still feels _right:_ I’m coming home to a place I’d thought long vanished.

Tommy gazes up at me. “There's no one for me like you.”

He’s so open, so genuine, I can’t bring myself to doubt him. He’d never been able to make eye contact with me if he was lying, before. Now he’s actively seeking it, making sure I know he’s for real. “If you give me the chance, I won't waste it this time.”

Hope blooms in my chest, amid my apprehension, and I think I know which one is going to win.

“It’s a lot of work, Tommy. Hard, messy, uncomfortable work.”

“I know.” His fingers graze along my side, delicate pressure glancing over my skin. “I want to do it with you.”

I take a deep breath and brace myself, because here we go. It's a huge leap of faith, but… I'll never know if I don't take it.

“I do, too.”


End file.
